


Burning bridges (you have to fix some, too)

by Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat



Series: Two sides of the same coin (too scratched up to be used) [2]
Category: Scarlet and Ivy Series - Sophie Cleverly
Genre: A vauge reference to the fact that Edith is poisoning everyone, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Dead Mothers, Gen, I mean it's really not but it is, It's genetic, Ivy Grey has Anxiety, Ivy Grey has Depression, Ivy Grey has insomnia, Mentions of withholding food as a punishment, Scarlet Grey has Anxiety, Scarlet Grey has Insomnia, Scarlet Grey has PTSD, Scarlet Grey has anger issues, Scarlet goes "it's MY trauma and I get to ignore it" and that's valid of her, When is it not child abuse with these kids :'), Wow it's the trauma of emotionally unavailable fathers, Wow! They both dissociate! Who would've guessed!, also like maybe PTSD but that's less obvious than in Scarlet, and abusive step-mothers, and presents differently, that's not genetic they just both have terrible luck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/pseuds/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat
Summary: Scarlet is burning from the inside out, some foreign fury taking and taking and taking until she's all burnt up, nothing but a husk of herself.
Relationships: Scarlet Grey & Ivy Grey
Series: Two sides of the same coin (too scratched up to be used) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944772
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Burning bridges (you have to fix some, too)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snekwami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snekwami/gifts).



Returning ho— to the Grey household after being trapped in an asylum is not- it's not a great adjustment. She never really liked it anyway, and their stepmother sets off so many mental alarms that it's all Scarlet can do not to strangle her (it was her it was her it was her, her mind screams, because she looked at the body and she said it was hers and she **lied** ), and their stepbrothers are awful (they hate her and she hates them, except now when they yell she can't stop _flinching_ and really that's just unfair), and father doesn't understand (and maybe just doesn't care, even though he's been better but he still doesn't care enough to really listen to her, and that hurts the part of her she'd thought had given up on him), and Ivy is the only person who gets her.

But she can't go to Ivy about everything (anything), because she doesn't want to seem weak. So she shuts it down. She's fine. She's out now, so everything's fine. 

(Nevermind that it's _not,_ that in her dreams she is screaming at doctors who never listen (sometimes for a God who won't listen, and Scarlet's not religious, not really, but even if she was **that** would've squandered any faith she had) and she can't leave and she _hates_ being trapped, has always hated being trapped, but now it is more like a desperate need and less of a preference, and Ivy doesn't find her and no one believes her until she nearly doesn't believe _herself,_ and she can't tell if it's real or not. She wakes up and she has to see Ivy, to be assured that this is real, that escaping wasn't a dream. Except even that doesn't work even though it _should,_ and an awful burning pressure builds up against her skull. Her jaw is clenched so hard against a scream that her teeth feel fragile, and brittle, and her hands curl into fists and she is so _angry,_ without really knowing why.

She burns with it, like it is eating her up from the inside out, and she finds herself curled into the corner of the room with her hands pulling on her hair, breathing harsh and laboured like she's been running. She can't tell if this is real or not, even though Ivy is _right there,_ because she imagined Ivy sometimes and it always hurt more when she found out she was fake. She used to hear Violet, too, and now she's not so sure if that was actually a dillusion because Violet was trapped with her and even if she's yet to see her (Miss Flitch kept them seperate on the train, looking weary) she's sure she'll be worse for wear. So maybe sometimes the screaming was real. Scarlet doesn't want to think about it, because if she thinks about it for too long she'll start to feel sorry for the brat. And Violet wouldn't want her sympathy.

Scarlet is folded into the corner, pulling at her hair to try and feel something, because if she's in pain then this is not a dream and everything will be **alright.** She is trying her hardest not to scream because _there's no reason to scream_ but it is building against her teeth and she is _**burning.**_ )

She is fine. Everything's fine, she's here with Ivy and she's out so **everything is fine.**

⁂

Father is sending them back. Father is sending them **back.** She is going back to hell and her father doesn't _care,_ not really, else he'd let them stay- even if only for a few weeks. Not sending them almost straight back. Father doesn't actually care anymore, not at all, and they are both just extra hassle. He doesn't **care**. Scarlet can't read Ivy (and isn't that something, that she can no longer understand what her twin is feeling just by a glance, that Ivy has changed that much in a year (that _she_ has changed that much)) but she seems somewhere between angry and resigned, like she almost expected this to happen.

(When did they grow so used to this- this neglect that this doesn't even surprised them? Because Scarlet feels betrayed, but underneath that she is not truly shocked, and Ivy _knew_.)

Miss Fox may be gone, but the thought of walking through Rookwood's halls makes her so utterly ~~terrified~~ furious that it makes her blood boil. And her hands twitch. And her teeth grind. She doesn't want to see everyone again, doesn't want to see her dorm again. Doesn't want to see the _roof_ again, while at the same time desperately needing to explore it, the place where things went from bad to worse. Out of the frying pan and into the fryer, they say, but they don't mention that both burn.

Scarlet does not want to go back. She needs to, a little bit, but she doesn't want to.

⁂

Ivy bemoans her last fight with Edith, that untimely argument that helped Miss Fox make her dissapeare, and Scarlet feels her hackles raise. It wasn't her fault. It really really wasn't, Ivy can't blame her. Except Ivy _can_ and Ivy _is_. The old Ivy would never do that. Ivy used to always be on her side, but Scarlet knows she's broken that trust, through the cheating and the lying and the dying. Ivy isn't the same and she blames Scarlet for what happened to her. Which- hurts. Scarlet shrugs, tries to pretend she doesn't care because she knows it's not true. It's not her fault Miss Fox is a mentalist.

Except Scarlet knows that she was a problem, is a problem, causes trouble for everyone around her even when she tries not to, so maybe it is a little bit her fault. Maybe, if she'd been less abrasive and less rude and less _her,_ none of this would have happened. Maybe Edith wouldn't hate them so much if Scarlet didn't rile her up so often, and if Edith didn't hate them so much Scarlet probably wouldn't have "died". It's still not her fault that both Miss Fox and Step-witch are fucking insane, though.

(But it is the reason for all of this. It's her fault she couldn't keep her mouth shut, her fault she couldn't make friends (too abrasive and loud and angry, and Scarlet _tried,_ but the other girls all turned their noses up and it _burned_. Their step brothers say she is the reason they are poor and she doesn't want them to be right, but maybe they _are_. She was poor, so the other girls didn't like her, and then she died, and they weren't poor anymore). It isn't her fault but it _is_.)

⁂

Dinner is cold and tense and honestly tastes slightly awful, bitter (like the cook, Scarlet thinks to herself), but Ivy eats it anyway. Scarlet, however, pushes her plate away. Ivy may have gotten more confrontational in the time she's been gone (if her spat with father is anything to go by) but she always did give in a little easily with Edith and him (Scarlet is quietly, internally, worried that Ivy has all but given up on their father completely. That she gives in so easily now not because she is afraid, but because it'd be too much effort to fight back - a waste of an effort).

Edith makes a disatisfied hum in the back of her throat. "Don't you like your food, Scarlet?"

Scarlet glares, restraining herself from responding how she wants to because father would make a scene out of it. "I'm not very hungry," she says instead, straightening her cutlery, "this is more food than I've had in a while, 'cause of the asylum." That's not even a lie- the more she rebelled, the more randomly her food came.

They didn't say it was punishment, and Scarlet's not entirely sure they were supposed to do it, but it happened all the same. She wasn't particularly hungry, locked up in there, anyways. (Her stomach twisted itself into knots, in the asylum. Sometimes she was _starving,_ while at the same time, not wanting to eat at all.)

Edith smiles at her, sharp, and Scarlet can tell that's really not what she wanted to do, but they both have to behave while father's there. Regardless, the smile sends something cold through Scarlet, like falling into a lake in winter, and suddenly she feels like she's about to _explode._ Her hands clench and her jaw locks and oh, this rage is indescribable. It is like a hurricane, like a force of nature, and it rattles around inside her while she grits her teeth and glares. She wants to _kill_ Edith, suddenly, violently, but she can't. So she locks it down, because she's fine, and fine people don't murder other people.

(Edith is, despite being awful, arguably fine. Edith still "killed" her, and though she's not dead, it certainly feels like parts of her have died. So maybe that's a lie.)

⁂

She can't sleep. She stares up at the ceiling and she's _exhausted,_ but sleep won't come. Eventually, she swings her legs over the side of the bed, and wanders down into the kitchen. Maybe a drink will help? She knows it won't, because her throats not dry, she's just scared of falling asleep and seeing herself die. (What was her funeral like? Did the witch pretend to care?) So she pads down the stairs, footsteps soft and light (it says something, that she still remembers how to avoid all the creaky floorboards- what, exactly, she doesn't know).

The kitchen is empty, when she gets there, and Scarlet looks for the glasses (either they've been moved or she just doesn't remember where they are, because they aren't in the draw she checks first, automatically. That's filled with snacks, instead). She's having a little bit of a crisis because she can't find the cups in _her own house,_ heart beating strangely fast (she's not scared, she's not. She's fine, not being able to find the glasses shouldn't bother her, so it doesn't), when Edith walks in.

She freezes, like she's been caught stealing bread again, and Edith does too, some small pouch in her hand crumpling.

"Why are you down here?", she asks, lips curled into a frown.

"Why does it matter to you? This is my house.", Scarlet responds, and maybe she's purposefully antagonising Edith, but it really shouldn't matter because Scarlet lives here too (except she doesn't, not really, because she was gone for a year and she's pretty sure her death got her removed from the will).

Edith's face contorts, and she stalks forward. Scarlet finds herself backing away, even though she _shouldn't be,_ because she's _fine._ Edith shouldn't scare her, Edith doesn't scare her, but her heart is fluttering and her teeth are clenching and Edith twists, just for a second, into Miss Fox.

(A sharp grin and a harsh smile, keys jangling as she made her rounds, hands dragging her, kicking and screaming, to her doom, yelling and hitting and raps across the knuckles, grinning in her worst dreams.)

Their stepmother (undeserving of that title now more than ever) grabs Scarlet's wrist, harsh, and Scarlet flinches backwards with such strength that she almost falls onto the kitchen counter, arm snatched up against her chest. Her heart is beating like a drum, pounding a tune out in her ears, and even though Edith's mouth moves, Scarlet doesn't hear a word she says. Her breathing pitches into panic, and suddenly she is unbearably angry, fuming with distrust and hate and fear, and she _screams_ at her, indistinguishable words of rage and anguish and insults, screams at her to keep away and leave her alone and _don't she **dare** touch her,_ and Edith looks taken aback. For a moment.

And then her face hardens into a scowl, and she screeches, "Shut up, you ungrateful child!", and her arm winds back, and Scarlet is so _angry_ she can't really focus on anything at all, and suddenly her face stings. A lot. Her mouth snaps closed, and one hand rises to her cheek. It shakes. Everything is fine. She's out, everything is **fine.** Something in Scarlet is burning and shrieking with fury, madder than ever, but it is like all connection to herself has just shut off. She pushes past Edith in a rush, and bangs up the stairs into her bedroom, careless to the fact it is late at night and she probably managed to piss off everyone else in the house doing that. It doesn't matter because nothing matters because she's back but no one _cares,_ and actually two people have said straight to her face that they wished she'd stayed dead.

It doesn't matter if father hates her, because at least if he hates her he feels _something_ about her.

She slams her door shut and suddenly realises she can't quite breathe, in a sort of distant "that's not good" way. She sinks to the floor next to the door, and she doesn't feel real. Even the choking breaths don't make her feel real, just like she'll faint at any moment. It's like when she wakes up from the nightmares she doesn't have, but different- it's not her surroundings that aren't real, it's _her._

Ivy is awake because of course Ivy is awake, and Scarlet vaugly notes that she looks absolutely _terrified_ as she crosses the room to Scarlet's side, and gently (so carefully, it's nice to be reminded someone cares) pulls her in for a hug, reverting to the tactics they used to use when Scarlet would get so mad she'd go breathless, or Ivy would get so frightened she'd go shaky, and it sort of works? Scarlet leans into her, and they fall asleep like that, curled around eachother like that might protect them from the rest of the world.

⁂

They are packed up in the car, and sent off, the next day. Edith scowls at Scarlet, and she scowls right back, and Ivy just sinks into the car seat like she'd love for the ground to swallow her whole. The whole ride there, Scarlet is furious and frustrated and, quietly, terrified out of her mind. Ivy just seems sad, almost bored, and Scarlet once again wonders if Ivy sort of knew this would happen, or if she's just given up on their father. The only sign Ivy is feeling any of the overwhelming terror that burns through Scarlet like a wildfire is the way she plucks at the seat stitching, methodically pulling the it apart stitch by stitch.

Scarlet stares out the window, and dreams she is going _anywhere_ but Rookwood, trying to distract herself with fantasies of going to a star ballet school, but her heart's not in it. That dream hasn't felt anywhere near realistic since her first fortnight in the asylum, and now it only makes her melancholy.

The car pulls up, eventually, and Scarlet takes one look at Rookwood and feels as though someone has doused her in gasoline and set her alight. Her hands clench into fists, and surprises herself with the force she slams the door. It makes a loud bang, and she flinches. Ivy flinches, too, and Scarlet doesn't like that, not one bit.

She pulls her suitcase out and drops it on the floor with perhaps more force than necessary, before kicking it for good measure. She feels as though not getting at least some of the rage out would turn her into a ticking time bomb, and she doesn't want to explode on Ivy, not when she's clearly also had a bad run of it at Rookwood. Honestly, Scarlet's not sure _anyone's_ ever enjoyed their time in this hell hole, but perhaps she and Ivy (and, admittedly, Violet) have had a worse time of it than most.

**Author's Note:**

> Scarlet needs some help. Unfortunately, she's never going to trust mental health services enough for that.


End file.
